Fat snowflakes fall on the daffodils’ down-turned cups, while a towhee chants—according to the time-worn birders’ mnemonic—Drink! Drink!
snow
Dawn. A phoebe and a cardinal are singing in the rain. At the woods’ edge, the last patch of snow has shrunk to the size of a hubcap.
The last patch of snow is sinking into the earth. A titmouse flits from branch to branch up a walnut sapling, whistling softly to himself.
Another gray day. The only snow left is what the plow mounded up, the earliest dating back to before Christmas: literal snows of yesteryear.
Snow is gone from the north side of the springhouse roof; the stream has a whole new range of notes. Up by the barn, a phoebe is calling.
On the northwest-facing hillside, the snow has shrunk to patches overnight. A robin sings here and there as if testing the acoustics.
A few hours into March and the wind starts to gust. On south-facing slopes, scattered splotches of bare ground like an incipient rash.
Rain on asphalt shingles, rain on corrugated tin, rain on twigs and branches, rain on the road, rain on three months’ worth of grainy snow.
After yesterday’s melting, the snowpack is a maze of wrinkles. The ridge turns orange. A hundred robins appear in the yard.
Snowstorm. The hammer-blows of a pileated woodpecker on what must be a very hollow dead tree. How annoyed I’d be if it were a human sound!
Bone-achingly cold. A squirrel navigating the tulip tree walks on the undersides of snowy limbs. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.
Four more inches of dry powder. The stream has shrunk to the thinnest black ribbon between white cliffs—a body that refuses to be buried.
Fine snow is falling, an hour before sunrise. Dogs start barking in the distance, and after a while a coyote answers—one long, wavering cry.
Another four inches of light powder. We are rich in snow now. The soundtrack is mostly woodpeckers: downy, pileated, red-bellied.